Terminal Nation
by Kei Tree
Summary: CH 2 UP! Set about ten years in the future. Ray searches for his past as Max and Alec search for peace, not just with each other, but in the world they helped to create. Please R/R!
1. Prologue

AN: Ahem, due to Baloo's wonderful, addicting influence, I have given into pressure to write a   
DA fic, a M/A fic. This is set about ten years in the future of DA from the last episode. It   
starts out with an old friend but the main point of view will be told through, well Max and   
Alec. =) Here's the prologue, please let me know what you think so far. I hope to have the   
next part up soon!   
  
Disclaimer: If you hear of any DA sales, let me know cause I don't own nothing...  
  
  
************************* Terminal Nation: Prologue ****************************  
  
  
Raymond Black slipped into the study of his Aunt's house, their house... It was quiet, dark,   
and cool. It smelled of old books and dust. He started to flip on the lamp but stopped,   
preferring the anonymity of the blackness that filled the room. He sidestepped stacks of paper   
and the large, rosewood desk, an original from Pre-Pulse days. Almost everything in here was.   
  
Quietly, furtively, he glanced around, hazel eyes dark, before stealing over to the far wall.   
Trembling fingers reach for the oil painting that depicted a rural American scene. The painting   
itself, original that it was, would probably make a killing but there was something worth much   
greater hidden behind it.   
  
He paused as his sensitive ears picked up the sound of a slamming door nearby. He held his   
breath and expelled it after a suitable amount of time passed. There were dozens of people   
here for the wake. Dressed in black, wailing, weeping for a woman none of them had bothered to   
know before she died.   
  
His hands clenched into unconscious fists as angry tears burned at his eyes and choked his   
throat. None of them had cared except him.   
  
And now she was dead. Dead and buried not two hours past. Covered with muddy, muddy earth,   
finally removed from the trouble of raising a child that wasn't her own. That wasn't anybody's.   
  
Angry with himself and with the people who claimed to love the only mother he had ever known Ray   
wiped his sleeve across his face, trying to stop the tears. He took a deep claming breath, and   
slowly unclenched his fists.   
  
After another moment he carefully slide the grand oil painting away to reveal the black faced   
safe behind. Grimly now Ray recited the digits to himself, unsteady hands turning the dial   
until there was a tiny click. The safe door swung open easily and he stared numbly at the   
stacks of cash, small and large bills, hidden there. Hidden from the government and the   
relatives that came like vultures to her funeral. Hidden away for him, so that he could have a   
future.   
  
So that he could find his past.   
  
Ray reached out and grabbed the bills, stuffing them in the pillow case he had smuggled from   
the laundry room. He took a deep breath and closed the now empty safe, swinging the painting   
back to its place.   
  
With a whispered prayer to his Aunt he crept from the room. Crept up the back staircase that   
led to his room. He grabbed the backpack he had packed before his Aunt had breathed her last   
labored breath. Before the scavengers had come with their lawyers and their well paid   
attorneys. It was filled with dry food and warm clothes.   
  
Raymond slipped it over his too thin shoulders after stuffing the pillow case inside it. His   
eyes, shadowed, haunted, flickered over his room one last time, the soccer trophies, the   
ribbons, the fairytales and stuffed animals he had pretended to outgrow so long ago.   
  
On impulse he snatched a frame of him and Aunt Rose, laughing together at the beach one day   
several carefree years ago. Before the sickness had come. Before he learned what it meant to   
really, really grow up. It too was shoved inside the back pack.   
  
Without hesitation then he unlatched the window of his second story room and climbed onto the   
roof. Ray caught an oak branch with ease and squirmed his way down the tree that was so   
conveniently planted outside his window. He landed roughly but soundlessly and dusted his   
palms against his faded jeans.   
  
It didn't take much stealth to sneak into the garage and grab a bike he hadn't ridden in several   
years. He couldn't afford the gas he would need for his moped or the car. Besides, plates   
could be traced, even now days. No one noticed a gangly kid on a bike.  
  
He carefully hopped on and pedaled experimentally, trying to get a feel for it again but, like   
the old saying went, once you learned to ride, you never forgot. He sped quietly away into the   
night, away from the brightly lit house he had called home.   
  
Away from Aunt Rose and sundaes and picnics and seashells gathered early Sunday morning. Away   
his childhood and towards, towards his birth and his future. Towards gray, gray Seattle, and   
Terminal Nation, home of the transgenics. Because he knew the answers he sought were there,   
among the ranks of creatures that weren't quite human. That weren't human at all.   
  
Knew because he wasn't quite human either. The tattoo burned into his skin was proof of that.   
He didn't have a barcode on the back of his neck but he remembered a woman who did. A woman   
with long black hair and eyes, sable and amber, framed by dark, daring lashes.   
  
A woman he saw in his fevered nightmares, nightmares of a frantic mother and cold, frightening   
father. She was his angel, his guardian, his savior. She had rescued him from the arms of   
evil. From the man his Aunt refused to speak about. And she lived at Terminal City.   
  
He knew because she was the most famous transgenic in the world. Because her face had graced   
every paper, every station, at some time or another in the last ten years since the transgenics   
had declared their independence. Because she was their leader. 


	2. Chapter 1

AN: Here's chapter one guys... Please leave a review if you feel so inclined. Not a lot  
of action, in any sense of the word in this one, just laying in some characterization ground   
work, or so I tell myself. ;)  
  
Disclaimer: See the Prologue.  
  
  
  
************************ Terminal Nation: Chapter One **************************  
  
  
"Riots broke out today in the nation's capitol as talks continued concerning the so called   
'Terminal Nation's' independence and its claim on much of Seattle."   
  
Alec laughed bitterly to himself. "So called independence my ass..." he spat as he fiddled   
with the knob for better reception on the battered radio.   
  
"In other news, the price of Tryptophan has sky rocketed on the black market as more medical   
reports have been released that support rumors of the so called 'X' series and their dependence   
on it."   
  
The laughter became a snort. "Oh yeah honey, I'm addicted." He cursed as he jabbed himself   
with the needle for the hundredth time and wondered why he hadn't asked Asha to help him.   
  
"Unca Alec!"   
  
Alec winced. That's why... "Up here Mads!" he called from his precarious perch on top of a   
tangled but serviceable staircase on the outskirts of what used to be known as Terminal City.   
Critical eyes studied the layout for several miles. The place had changed in ten years, he'd   
give them that. It was still a dump, just not literally speaking.   
  
His home away from Manticore was just as run down as ever, put together and built upon with   
second hand parts and things society had discarded. It was safe for humans now though, or safe   
enough. The toxins and trash had been washed and trucked away. It had been one of their first   
demands. One of Max's anyway and that woman usually got what she wanted.   
  
A second later and Maddie's blonde head bobbed into view. She stared up at him, shielding her   
eyes from the glare of the sun with one hand while the other was set on her hip in mock   
indignation.  
  
"Aren't you done yet?!" she shouted. Okay, maybe the indignation wasn't entirely mock.   
  
"Be careful," he called back as she stubbornly started to clamber up the rusted metal   
structure. She nodded her head in mute acknowledgment and expelled a breath a moment later as   
she plopped beside him, breathing heavily.   
  
After all, Maddie was entirely human.   
  
"There!" Alec proclaimed with a flourish as he finished the last stitch and snapped the string.   
He handed the small rag doll to the girl that could have very easily been his daughter, if Asha   
had been as friendly as he would have preferred so long ago before his life became what it was,   
laughably and inexplicably NERVOUS.   
  
Nervous that Madison's big blue eyes would start to tear again. Nervous that she would find   
fault at his earnest attempt to fix something precious that had been broken. Alec had never   
been very good at fixing things. Killing them, hurting them, those he had no problem with but   
fixing, healing? Apparently Manticore hadn't successfully given him every skill he would need   
through genetic enhancement.  
  
Maddie carefully held the doll she had had since birth. She examined the clumsy line of yellow   
thread that showed where the arm had been torn during a game of keep away with some of the older   
boys. The eight year old tugged on it experimentally and beamed up through a golden smile that   
was missing two front teeth.   
  
"Oh Unca Alec, you fixed her! I love you, I love you, I love you! You're the best!"   
  
Alec coughed to cover his embarrassment as the child threw her thin arms around his neck and   
squeezed him for all he was worth. He disentangled himself gingerly.  
  
"Tell that to Auntie Maxie Mads..." he said with a rueful grin as he ruffled her curls.   
Madison froze him with a withering glare.   
  
"Maybe Auntie Maxie wouldn't me so mad at you if you hadn't forgotten your anniversary."   
  
Alec winced. "She didn't have to throw a wrench at me," he said defensively to the child as he   
stood up and dusted his dirty palms against his jeans.   
  
Maddie tossed her pigtails behind her shoulders. "You shouldn't have told her that you thought   
anniversaries are stupid."   
  
Alec couldn't resist the urge and stuck his tongue out at her. "They are stupid."   
  
Maddie laughed as he reached down, picked her up, and began to expertly tickle her. "Stop,   
stop!" she screeched, giggling and laughing all the while.   
  
"What was that Madison?" he called, a carefree grin splitting his own handsome features as she   
wiggled in his grasp.   
  
"I said stop!"  
  
Alec set her down with a thump and beamed as the eight year old fumed up at him through unevenly   
cut bangs. "Daddy never forgets any anniversaries, never ever." The transgenic sighed and   
swallowed as he scooped up the child once again and began to climb slowly down the stairs.  
  
"I know Mads. I know. After all, your Daddy is perfect."  
  
"Not perfect," Madison Cale replied seriously as he deposited her on the ground, safe and sound   
and none the worse for the climb. "Daddy couldn't have fixed this. Wouldn't even have tried."   
  
Alec stared at the extended rag doll. The tattered, torn, and much beloved rag doll. A sad   
smile tugged at his features and on impulse he bent and gave the little girl a bone gripping   
hug.  
  
"Thanks Mads. Now go on home. Your mother will skin me if you're late for supper, my fault or   
not, and I already have one female mad at me who can kick my a... butt. My butt," he finished   
quickly.   
  
Maddie kissed him on one grizzled cheek and bounded off before calling her advice out over one   
shoulder. "Go apologize to Aunt Max right now! It makes her sad when you fight..."  
  
Alec expelled a breath in frustration. She wasn't the only one...  
  
*************************************************************************************  
  
"Hay boo, will you go make kissie with your man and stop moping?"   
  
Max stuck her head out from under the car she was working on, a smear of grease across one cheek   
and tools in both hands. "Mind your own business OC and I am NOT moping."   
  
Original Cindy rolled her eyes from her swivel chair in the make shift garage Max called her   
retreat. She propped booted feet up on the rickety table and fiddled with the knob on the   
radio. She muttered a choice curse word when static met her efforts.  
  
"Then why are you here, getting all dirty n stuff for no reason humm? You haven't turned all   
mechanic chick on me since Sketchy lost his arm in that raid which wasn't, for the millionth   
time, your fault."   
  
Max blew a stubborn strand of jet black hair out of her eyes and rolled back under the car.   
Her muffled answer came a moment later. "For your information I am... I'm worried about   
Joshua."   
  
OC sat up a bit straighter and sighed, dark eyes easily imagining Max's pinched face and   
hunched shoulders. She let the Alec issue slide as she stood and made her way to the ground   
level where Max was working underneath the half built automobile.  
  
Max determinedly ignored the booted feet in her line of vision.   
  
"Boo..."  
  
Silence from under the car.  
  
"Come on Maxie girl. Joshua knows how to take care of himself. He's known for a long time.   
He's your big guy and we all love him and that's why he has to be there. You can't go and he   
can do what needs to be done." Max's hands clenched the part in her hand until her knuckles   
turned white.   
  
"I... OC I can't stand the thought of him so far away and by himself. He's in Washington for   
god's sakes. He's not a politician and... They'll rip him apart."  
  
Original Cindy snorted as she resorted to desperate measures. She lay flat on the ground until   
she and Max were head to head. Cindy stared up at the ceiling as Max silently studied the under   
workings of a car.   
  
"You underestimate him boo." She heard Max sigh and continued. "He's strong, you know he is.   
After Annie... He can do anything Max. He wants us to be at peace, just as much as you do. He   
wants the fighting to stop. He wants the killing to stop. He wants Annie to be proud of him,   
even if it takes another ten years.   
  
"He wants White dead."   
  
Max laughed shakily. "He's not the only one."   
  
"He's been watching you boo, he's been learning from you since the day you torched Manticore   
and set them free. He's no fool Max. Joshua will be all right. Now about you and Alec."   
  
Max groaned as she went back to work, determined to ignore the rest of her best friend's words. 


	3. Chapter 2

AN: Yeah, I'm a good writer! I finished the next chapter and its twice as long as I thought   
it was gonna be cause I added a Joshua segment. Reward me with a review... pleeeaaasseee....  
  
Don't ya'll love me? ;) (purely a rhetorical question by the way...)  
  
See Prologue for inane disclaimer...  
  
  
************************* Terminal Nation: Chapter Two *************************  
  
  
Agent White, hidden agent of a not so hidden secret breeding cult, studied the reports before   
him in the dim lighting of his office at the bureau. His superior eye sight didn't need much   
to make out the words and he preferred the shadows. They hid so much...  
  
Bodies, blood, sins that would damn him if he believed in his soul. He didn't.  
  
Steady fingers reached out and brushed the face of the boy looking guilelessly at the camera.   
At the man. At his son.  
  
His son... Lost to him so long ago, ten agonizing years. He had been stolen, taken from under   
his father's nose. Anger burned briefly in White's eyes as the face of his son's abductor   
flashed in his mind. Strong fingers curled and he wished, feverently, for the shadows to have   
blood to hide.   
  
For 452 to be ruined, broken, torn and decimated by his hands. For her perfection to be   
marred. For his thirst for revenge to be slacked. He wanted Terminal Nation destroyed and   
the rogue transgenic leader who arrogantly called herself Max to be brought to her genetically   
engineered knees.   
  
He wanted to see Max beg. He wanted her to see everything she held dear brought to a swift and   
brutal end. He wanted to see hope flicker and die in her dark, dark eyes.   
  
Max... even the name filled him with fury. She was scum... she was an experiment gone horribly   
wrong. She didn't deserve life. She didn't deserve the rights she demanding for her and the   
other freaks. She wasn't important enough to warrant a name.   
  
Yet still it slipped through... Still, sometimes, even if it was only in his mind his fury was   
directed and Max, at the too human woman who promised to end him and his people's bid for   
dominance instead of the nameless, faceless, worthless 452. It was a dangerous change.   
  
It made things personal.   
  
But what could be more personal than his son?   
  
She had hidden him away for ten years. Ten years of his only child's life had been spent among   
the very filth he would one day rule. Ray had grown and lived and breathed without him by his   
side.   
  
His own flesh and blood was a stranger. A stranger and an outcast all because of 452...  
  
But not for long.   
  
The reports of a missing 'Raymond Black' crumpled under his hands. His capable, cruel hands.   
  
Agent White stood and popped his neck casually before grabbing his coat and striding out of his   
office. He had things to do... a son to find, a nation to tear down, and a woman to kill.  
  
Max...  
  
**************************************************************************************  
  
Raymond Black studied the skyline of Seattle from his perch on a slightly distant hill. He   
chewed the smashed candy bar he had stolen from a convenient store absently. He had run out of   
food several days ago and had resorted to not so ethical means to survive.   
  
The logical thing to do was to use some of his cash to get to the city but he couldn't bear to   
part with it. He might need it for something more than what he could steal. Besides, most the   
bills were large anyway. Kids who looked like him didn't carry that kind of currency. Not   
legally anyway.  
  
The wrapper drifted to the ground as the gray, silent looking city sprawled down below. It was   
like some kind of sleeping giant from a fairy tale of old, slumbering, but alive, somehow. Just  
waiting to be reawakened. The thought didn't comfort him in the least.   
  
How was he supposed to find the woman, Max, in that humbled concrete labyrinth? How was he   
supposed to find answers buried under ten years of dust?   
  
Ray sighed deeply and drew his jacket closer. It was getting colder, as time continued its   
unstoppable march towards winter. Clouds gathered and thunder rolled overhead. He winced as   
lightning split the sky with a brilliant flash that temporarily blinded him.   
  
His tired feet found the pedals of his bike as he laboriously continued his pilgrimage towards   
fate. The sky grumbled for a moment before parting like a curtain that obscured heaven, only to   
unleash hell. Sheets of bitterly cold rain fell gleefully, soaking the already muddy ground   
and the youth who continued doggedly onward.   
  
Ray coughed and pedaled on.  
  
*******************************************************************************************  
  
Joshua growled at the gawking youth who delivered room service to the "luxurious" sweet he had   
been afforded for his stay. The boy stammered incoherently and fled, leaving the battered but   
useable silver cart at the door. The growl turned to a sigh as he brought the cart in. You'd   
think that after ten years the world would be used to the differences between them. And   
perhaps ready to see what made them all the same.  
  
"You're making a real name for yourself buddy... I can see the headlines now: 'Second in   
Command of Terminal Nation Frothing Beast!'"   
  
Joshua glowered at the human lounging in a plush but threadbare chair next to the room's   
breakfast table. "Sketch would have written himself not long ago," he replied simply as he   
revealed dinner, plain sandwiches, and the smell of tuna and ham filled the room.   
  
Sketchy shrugged and reached out to grab the ham plate. Joshua batted the hand away. "I do   
not eat fish." Sketch braved the tired transgenic's stubborn glare for a moment before   
shrugging easily again and switching easily to the tuna.   
  
"That was before you fed me on a regular basis."   
  
Joshua continued to glare for another long minute as he watched Sketch eat, unconcerned, with   
his right hand. The other arm was nonexistent from the elbow down, another casualty of   
humanity's intolerance and blind hatred. Sometimes even their own got caught in the cross fire,   
not that humanity bothered to care. Sketch was a traitor after all...  
  
He lived in Terminal Nation. He championed transgenic rights, and he fought in all the   
sporadic battles and skirmished that had happened in the last decade. Or he had, until his   
accident. And Sketch still stood, unflinching, at Joshua's side as the transgenic diplomat   
made impassioned speeches and danced the political dance he barely understood, trying,   
desperately, to be seen as something besides a monster in the eyes of more than a precious few.  
  
Sketch was one of the few that Joshua treasured as a friend and ally because he saw no   
revulsion in the human's face.   
  
The glare eased into tiredness as Joshua sank into an empty chair, ham sandwich temporarily   
forgotten, as he buried his shaggy head into his hands. Frustration warred with helplessness   
until both swirled together, taunting, in his mind.   
  
"I should not be here..." he whispered into the uncomfortable silence that had fallen. Joshua   
raised stricken eyes and met Sketch's own. "I do not belong here friend. I cannot..." With a   
cry the uneaten dinner crashed to the worn carpeting as Joshua's huge hand swept the small table   
clean.   
  
"I am not good for our cause. Max should not have entrusted me. I will fail her, me, us..."   
  
Sketch stood and swallowed before placing a tentative hand on the transgenic's anguished   
shoulder. "Hay Big Guy... Listen to me. Listen to me Joshua!" Joshus looked up swiftly.   
"Listen to me." Sketch took a deep breath before continuing swiftly.   
  
"You can do this Joshua, you will do this because this is something Max can't do. She's our   
leader Joshua but to every eye, even her own, she looks human. She looks more human than I   
do." He waved his amputated arm before the mute transgenic's mute face for emphasis.   
  
"These blockheads up here need someone like you Joshua, to stand up and remind them that we   
are a little different. But as different as we are that we have rights. That we are people.   
That we cannot be swept under the political rug and quietly cowed by a few deaths and acts of   
meaningless violence. You're our poster boy Joshua.   
  
"Be yourself and I promise you that you can do nothing but help. Max trusts you more than she   
trusts herself with this. That's why you're here. If you don't trust yourself, or my own  
ringing stamp of approval, at least trust Max's judgment. We're not dead yet so she has to be   
doing something right."  
  
Sketch straightened and looked sheepish as Joshua stared at him. Finally a slight smile   
crossed his features as he watched the squirming human. "And you think I am a good speaker?"   
he demanded incredulously.   
  
Sketch coughed. "Let's order more dinner. I don't trust the floors in here. Hopefully we get   
a new deliverer this time though... That boy was about to pee his pants..." Joshua sighed   
again and nodded in agreement.   
  
His fear of failure was still there but it was tempered by the knowledge that he wasn't in this   
alone. That he had friends like Max and Sketch and all of Terminal Nation who would stand by   
him the entire way, till the very end. Joshua was not a spiritual person, not in the   
traditional sense, but it didn't stop him from appealing to some greater power. He prayed for   
peace as he sat in the darkened hotel room at the heart of a nation still trying to rebuild   
itself. Prayed for peace and dreamt of Annie for the first time in years as he slumbered   
restlessly with Sketch's steady snoring coming from the other bed. She traced the new lines on   
his face and held him as he cried in his bittersweet dreams.  
  
And dawn didn't seem quite so dark anymore as they rose the next morning, ready to begin their   
quest anew. Not bright exactly, but no longer so terribly dark. 


End file.
